Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Backyard Bouquet Podcast, where stories bloom from local flower fields and home gardens. I'm your host, Jennifer Galizia of The Flowering Farmhouse. I'm a backyard gardener turned flower farmer located in Hood River, Oregon.
Speaker: Join us for heartfelt journeys shared by flower farmers and backyard gardeners. Each episode is like a vibrant garden, cultivating wisdom and joy through flowers. From growing your own backyard garden to supporting your local flower farmer,
Speaker: The Backyard Bouquet is your fertile ground for heartwarming tales and expert cut flower growing advice. All right, flower friends, grab your gardening gloves, garden snips, or your favorite vase because it's time to let your backyard bloom.
Speaker: Hi, flower friends. Today's episode is going to be a little different from Every now and then, I'm going to be sharing these solo episodes that for now I'm calling At the Garden Gate.
Speaker: It's a way to step aside from the busy pace and meet you at the edge of the garden and talk about the real, behind-the-scenes parts of growing. Not just flowers, but life too.
Speaker: These episodes are a space for honest reflections, encouragement, and little lessons the garden is teaching me along the way. I hope when you listen, it feels like a deep breath and a reminder that you're not growing alone.
Speaker: So I want to begin today by saying something out loud that I think a lot of us have been quietly feeling. This season feels like a lot. Maybe you're also feeling it, that tightness in your chest when you look at everything that needs doing.
Speaker: ache in your back after a full day outside, the questions swirling in your head like, am I doing enough? Did I start too late? Is this even going to work?
Speaker: If that's where you're at right now, please know you are not alone. We are already at the end of April, and it's such a complex time for farmers and gardeners alike.
Speaker: It's the season where everything kicks into gear. And yet nothing feels settled. The calendar might say spring, but some days still feel like winter. So whether you're starting seeds, prepping soil, figuring out logistics, or trying to remember what worked last year, or pushing forward even if you don't feel quite ready.
Speaker: And I'll be honest, this month has been a lot for me too. We are at the beginning of a brand new season on a brand new farm, and it's brought with it a whole new wave of unexpected challenges.
Speaker: I've been adjusting expectations, watching budgets stretch beyond what we planned, and starting from scratch again and again. I've also been driving back and forth to a field that doesn't quite feel like home yet, trying to hold all of the moving pieces while also holding space for my family and for myself.
Speaker: There have been beautiful moments, of course, so don't get me wrong, but there have also been lots of tears. And I share that not because I want sympathy, but because I know that I'm not the only one walking through a season that maybe feels heavier than expected.
Speaker: We don't always talk about this part, the behind the scenes of building a garden or a farm or a life, but it's here, in the in-between, the overwhelm,
Speaker: in the how am I going to keep all of this moving, that some of the most important growth begins. So today's episode is for anyone who's feeling it. The weight, the uncertainty, the exhaustion, the beauty too, of course, but maybe that's buried just a little bit deeper right now.
Speaker: So if that's you, I hope this time together feels like a breath of fresh air, a moment to step back, reground, and remember that you are not alone. You are right on time.
Speaker: you're growing, even if it doesn't look like it yet. So today, I want to talk about seeds. and pressure, and patience, and also what the lotus flower has to teach us about blooming in less than perfect conditions.
Speaker: So let's begin. Let's begin with this season we're in right now, springtime. This time of year always feels like it's bursting at the seams. Everything is waking up.
Speaker: The soil is softening. The lists are long. And the stakes, whether real or just deeply felt, suddenly feel a lot higher. This is when we're not just dreaming of the garden, we're knee-deep in it.
Speaker: It's when the days stretch longer, but somehow feel shorter. When you go outside with a plan and come back inside with dirt in your hair, four half-finished tasks, and a to-do list that somehow grew while you weren't even looking.
Speaker: Spring has a way of making you feel like you're both behind and doing too much at the same time. Like no matter how early you start or how many trays you sew, it's never quite enough.
Speaker: And for those of us who grow for a living, or even just grow with deep intention, it can feel like the weight of the whole season rests on what happens this month. The seeds we start, the fields we prep, the decisions we make now that will ripple into summer and fall.
Speaker: Recently, my friend Marin from the Farmhouse Flower Farm shared on Instagram, and her post stopped me in my tracks. She said, this time of year feels like childbirth.
Speaker: And honestly, it does. There's that push, that pressure, uncomfortable, uncomfortable, unglamorous, deeply physical labor that's required to bring something into the world.
Speaker: It's not quiet. It's not easy, but it's part of the process. It's not a sign that something is wrong. It's a sign that something is coming to life.
Speaker: And just like childbirth, this season asks everything of us, our time, our bodies, our energy, our emotional reserves.
Speaker: We don't talk enough about how much spring takes out of us and how quietly it demands it. There's no big event, no single moment, just a slow crescendo of tasks and needs and expectations.
Speaker: And then, if we're not careful, we reach the point of burnout before we've even reached full bloom. This has been especially true for me this year. Starting over on a new farm has brought beauty.
Speaker: Yes, but also exhaustion. There's so much joy in the dream, but the day-to-day of rebuilding, of laying foundations, of watching costs rise, of driving between here and there, figuring it out all in real time, it adds up.
Speaker: There's something about being back at the beginning again that feels both exhilarating and incredibly tender. You forget how much it takes to start fresh. And there's no muscle memory for this season yet.
Speaker: Only hope, grit, and a deep trust that it's worth it. In a quiet moment together, Marin also reminded me, when I was feeling extremely tired the other day, she said, Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither should our farms.
Speaker: That line has been become a quiet mantra for me this spring because sometimes I forget. I want it to be all in place right now. I want the fields to be planted, the systems to be set up, my irrigation to be in place, the beauty to be visible.
Speaker: But beauty takes time. Roots take time. And beginnings, as hopeful as they are, are often laced with tears. So if you're feeling stretched at the end of this April, whether emotionally, physically, mentally,
Speaker: You're not doing it wrong. You are doing the work. You're in the push. And even though it's hard and messy and you might be shedding a few tears, trust me, I know I have, this too is part of the rhythm of the garden.
Speaker: Because just like the earth right now, you are shifting, thawing, emerging, preparing. And just like the bulbs that are blooming through layers of cold soil, you are allowed to take your time.
Speaker: You are allowed to do it differently this year. You're allowed to let it be messy. You are allowed to trust what's being built will bloom in its own time. Let this be your permission slip to slow down, to breathe, to begin again.
Speaker: Let's also talk about seeds. There's something so sacred about planting a seed. It's one of the simplest acts and one of the most symbolic. A single seed holds so much potential, so much unknown, and so much trust.
Speaker: But we often don't talk about what has to happen before that seed becomes anything resembling growth. To grow, seed has to crack open.
Speaker: It has to surrender the shape it was. It has to dissolve the safety of its shell. It has to allow itself to be changed by the darkness around it. And it has to do all of this before it ever sees the light.
Speaker: That part of the process is invisible, uncelebrated, and sometimes mistaken for failure. But it's not failure. It's actually transformation.
Speaker: And I think that's where so many of us are right now, in that middle space, the cracking, the unseen shifting, The moment when everything feels like too much, but something deeper is happening underneath.
Speaker: I don't know about you, but I've had many moments in life that felt like I was falling apart, only to look back later and realize I wasn't really falling apart.
Speaker: I was cracking open. Sometimes we need the pressure to grow. Sometimes we need to lose the form we were in in order to become what's next. Sometimes growth starts with stress.
Speaker: And that can be hard to accept, especially for those of us who love to plan, who love clear progress, who love when the garden behaves the way we expect it to.
Speaker: But seeds aren't worried about timelines. They aren't rushing. They're just responding to the conditions, to temperature, to moisture, to warmth, to invitation, to the energy.
Speaker: I think we're a lot like that too. When the conditions are right, or sometimes when they're not, we begin to shift. We feel the tension. We feel something in us press against the shell of what used to be comfortable, and we start to reach.
Speaker: Up. Out. toward the unknown. There's an honesty in that process, a surrender, a remembering that we were never meant to stay in the seed form forever.
Speaker: We were meant to bloom. But blooming doesn't begin at the surface. It begins in the dark. It begins in the messy, nutrient-rich, often overlooked space of becoming.
Speaker: So if you're listening to this and wondering why you feel so raw right now, why you feel tired or uncertain or like everything is harder than it should be, i just want to offer this thought.
Speaker: Maybe you're not doing it wrong. Maybe you're just cracking open. Maybe this season isn't about producing the most. Maybe it's about rooting the deepest.
Speaker: I've had times in my own growing journey, especially in the early years of farming, when I thought I'd failed, crops didn't grow, things took longer than I expected.
Speaker: I couldn't keep up with everything. i cried in the field, convinced I wasn't cut out for this. But looking back, I can see now. Those moments were when I was being reshaped.
Speaker: The old ways of doing things were falling away. And something stronger, more rooted, more true, was trying to emerge. The same way the seed leaves behind its casing, the same way the sprout pushes through compacted earth,
Speaker: The same way a tiny shoot reaches for light it's never seen, but somehow nose is there. That's the work. So if you're in that space right now, the tension, the unknown, the cracking, I want you to know that it's not wasted.
Speaker: That unseen moment underground, that's where the magic begins. You're not broken. You're in transition. You're preparing to rise.
Speaker: There's another image that's also been sitting with me lately, and that's the lotus flower. I actually wasn't even thinking about it. But then one morning recently, it found me.
Speaker: Not once, but three different times. First, my husband sent me a photo of a lotus. My coach brought it up in a session. And that quote on my teabag?
Speaker: The lotus blooms in the mud. That was all before 10 a.m. I paused, I breathed, and I smiled. It was one of those moments where the universe, or maybe the garden, was whispering, pay attention.
Speaker: So I did. The lotus is one of the most beautiful blooms in the world. It's soft, radiant, revered across cultures as a symbol of peace, wisdom, and transformation.
Speaker: But what makes the lotus extraordinary isn't just how it looks. It's where it grows. Not in pristine soil, not in filtered water or manicured beds, but in the mud.
Speaker: Murky, stagnant, oxygen-poor water, conditions that would drown or rot most plants. And yet, it rises.
Speaker: It pushes up through the thickest, least ideal environment and becomes something luminous. Not despite the mud, but because of it. However, the lotus doesn't carry the mud with it.
Speaker: It transforms it. That truth caught me at just the right moment because this last month has felt muddy in so many ways. Starting a new farm, rebuilding systems, navigating unexpected costs,
Speaker: trying to plan when things don't always go to plan. It's all beautiful, but it's also been exhausting. Some days it's hard to see the bloom, hard to trust that something radiant is growing beneath the surface when all I feel is pressure and mess and emotional fatigue.
Speaker: But that's what the lotus teaches us, that transformation happens in less than perfect conditions. That sometimes it's the mess that becomes the medium for beauty.
Speaker: We're often taught to wait for clarity before we begin, to wait for the soil to settle, to wait for life to feel lighter, more manageable, more certain.
Speaker: But nature doesn't work that way. The dandelion doesn't wait for ideal circumstances. It finds a crack in the pavement and grows anyway. The wildflower blooms along the side of the road without asking for permission.
Speaker: The seedling stretches toward light it's never seen. simply because something in it knows where to go. And that lotus, it blooms not when things are easy, but when it's ready, because it has to, because that's what it was made to do.
Speaker: So if your life, your farm, your garden, or your heart feels a little muddy right now, don't pull back. Stay rooted. You're not in the wrong place.
Speaker: You are not behind. You are in the middle of something sacred. This is not the season for perfection. This is the season for becoming. Let the lotus remind you.
Speaker: You don't need clean water to grow. You don't need ideal conditions to rise. You just need to trust the process and your place in it. Let this be your permission to stop waiting for perfect, to stop trying to control every variable, to stop thinking you have to have it all figured out before you begin.
Speaker: Let this be your reminder that the work you're doing right now in the Merck in the unknown, is holy, it's beautiful, and it's enough. You are rising, even if it still feels like mud.
Speaker: So where does that leave us? You've heard me talk about seeds and cracking open, about spring's push, and the lotus rising from the mud. And maybe now you're asking, okay, but what do I do next?
Speaker: So let me offer you this. You don't have to do everything. You just have to do the next right thing. That's it. You don't need to plant all the beds today.
Speaker: You don't need to fix every system, complete every task, or catch up on a year's worth of ideas in one weekend. You just need to breathe, to listen, to take one step in the direction of care.
Speaker: That might look like watering a tray of seedlings. It might look like setting the shovel down and going inside to rest. Or it might look like stretching your back, drinking some water, or opening your journal and writing what you wish today felt like.
Speaker: Whatever it is, just start there. And if today, the next right thing is simply being still, trust that. Because we're not machines, we're growers.
Speaker: We move in cycles. We ebb and flow with the seasons. Nature doesn't bloom all year long, and you don't have to either. In fact, some of the most important work happens underground, invisible, unseen, unapplauded.
Speaker: But yet, it's still growth. So if you're in a place where you feel like you're not moving fast enough, or doing enough, or growing enough, please take a breath and remember, even dormancy has a purpose.
Speaker: Even rest feeds the roots. You are not behind. You are not failing. You're just human, and you're allowed to be. One of the phrases I keep coming back to this season is, trust the pace of your own becoming.
Speaker: Not the pace you see on social media. Not the one someone else mapped out Not the one you imagined January. the one you imagined in January. but your pace, your body, your rhythm, your land, your season.
Speaker: There is no race here. There is just the unfolding. And I promise you, if all you do today is one thing with care, that is more than enough. You are showing up.
Speaker: You are tending beauty. You are participating in something meaningful, one small act at a time. So keep going. You may not see the bloom yet, but something is taking root.
Speaker: As we come to the end of this time together, I want to circle back to where we began. Spring is a lot. It asks more of us than we often expect. It stretches our bodies, our patience, and our capacity.
Speaker: And it can leave even the most seasoned growers feeling overwhelmed. But here's the beauty. You're not alone in that. We're all figuring it out. We're all making decisions on the fly, learning as we go, and holding more than what's visible on the outside.
Speaker: And yet, here you are. You've chosen to listen to this today, to pause for a moment of reflection, to step back and remember that there's more to this season than your to-do list.
Speaker: That in the midst of the chaos, you are doing something important and sacred. Whether you're tending a field of flowers, a row of tomatoes, a backyard pollinator garden, or just the hope that one day you'll plant again, you're participating in a rhythm that is so much older than any of us.
Speaker: It's a rhythm of growth, a rhythm of surrender, ah rhythm of starting again. Okay, we talked a lot in this episode about seeds and the invisible cracking open that has to happen before anything grows.
Speaker: We talked about the lotus flower and how some of the most radiant beauty rises through the murkiest of conditions and the reality of spring's intensity, as well as the deep permission to move at your own pace.
Speaker: But if you walk away with only one thing today, let it be this. You are enough right now. Not when the garden is picture perfect. Not when everything is blooming.
Speaker: Not when the weeds are gone or the systems are built or the dream is fully realized. Right now, in the cracking, in the mud, in the slow, quiet unfolding, you are enough.
Speaker: and you are not behind. You are in the middle of your season. Sometimes we forget that the middle is sacred too, that the work you're doing, messy and uncertain as it may feel, is part of something meaningful.
Speaker: Every time you choose to tend instead of rush, to observe instead of judge, to rest instead of push, you are nurturing more than just plants.
Speaker: You're nurturing yourself. You're restoring your relationship with the earth. You're giving beauty a chance to take root in a world that needs more of it. So if you've been doubting yourself lately, please don't.
Speaker: Keep planting, keep pausing, and keep following where the flowers lead. Because even when you don't see the results yet, something is working beneath the surface.
Speaker: And one day soon, you'll look back and realize you were blooming all along. All right, flower friends, if this episode resonated with you, if it offered a breath or a moment of grounding, or reminded you that you're not alone, I'd be honored if you'd share this message with someone else who might need it today as well.
Speaker: Whether that's a fellow gardener, ah friend starting over, or someone in the middle of their own muddy season, sometimes a simple message arrives at just the right time.
Speaker: Maybe today that message is for you.
Speaker: Thank you, flower friends, for joining us on another episode of the Backyard Bouquet. i hope you've enjoyed the inspiring stories and valuable gardening insights we've shared today.
Speaker: Whether you're cultivating your own backyard blooms or supporting your local flower farmer, you're contributing to the local flower movement. And we're so happy to have you growing with us. If you'd like to stay connected and continue this blossoming journey with local flowers, don't forget to subscribe to the Backyard Bouquet podcast.
Speaker: I'd be so grateful if you would take a moment to leave us a review of this episode. And finally, please share this episode with your garden friends. Until next time, keep growing, keep blooming, and remember that every bouquet starts right here in the backyard.
